Chapter 64. In Transit
26. January 2415 AD, Citadel, Presidium
"Well the good news is that her mind is not beyond repair. While the trauma caused by the experience was severe, I do believe that I can help Doctor T'Soni recover. Her response to our early treatment has been largely positive and the fact that we managed to tap into some of her older memories already suggests that she still has control over her mind."
"And the bad news?"
"Excuse me?"
"When you say that there are good news, there's also bound to be bad news," Emily pointed out while sitting in the well-furnished office of the asari doctor in charge of treating her asari doctor. "So go ahead. What's the bad news?"
"It will take time," the doctor explained. "As I I was informed, we do not have time."
"How long are we talking?" the N7 asked cautiously, coming to the most important question of this meeting.
"At least another two months," the purple asari replied while glancing into the luxurious room behind them where Liara had been placed for the time being. "Like I said, the trauma was severe. All the pain, all the fear her mother went through prior to her death? It was all passed on. Doctor T'Soni experienced death first hand. Putting a mind back together after that is a long process I am not willing to rush, despite the Council's request."
"Believe me, I'm the last person you have to convince of that," Emily replied, pushing the thought that they were more than just screwed if Liara didn't somehow recover faster into the back of her mind. "Anything else?" she added a moment later, hoping for some more good news.
"No," the doctor shook her head. "Wait. Yes. Speaking of the Council," she muttered while looking at the tablet in her hand. "There was something our secretary wanted to discuss with you. I believe it concerned some error with their credit transfer. Talk to him on your way out, will you?"
Not the anything else she had hoped for.
Then again, it was better than more bad news.
"Will do," the marine nodded. "You'll call me if there's any more news?"
"Of course."
Getting the feeling that the doctor was eager to attend another patient, Shepard left it at that and went on her way to the front desk where a brown-haired man in his forties was already waiting for her.
"I was told there was an error?" she began, figuring that since he had already been expecting her, he also knew what she was talking about.
"It wasn't exactly an error," the man corrected. "The bill the Council paid for was already covered before they made the transfer."
"It was?"
"Yes."
That made her raise an eyebrow. The impression she had gotten up to now was that the enormous bureaucratic machine that made up the Citadel Council and its associated offices would neither be this fast nor slip up and pay a bill twice. When it came to money, they didn't make mistakes.
"Who paid for it?"
"Some salarian guy. Didn't look like the Council sent him. Didn't give me a name either," the man said before reaching behind the table, producing a white plastic card and holding it towards her. "He told me to give this to you," he added, likely confused as to why she wasn't immediately taking it from him and instead pointing her omni-tool's scannner at it. "What's the matter?" he asked, somewhat nervously now.
She had attended more than enough cyber-security briefings to know that she shouldn't just flat out take something like that.
"Nothing," she replied when her omni-tool let her know that it really was just a plastic card without a malicious hidden feature. Pulling the card from his hand, she read what had been written on the side facing her.
'A small favour for the Hero of Elysium. Come by when you find the time.'
Turning it around to find a red, three-pointed star and an address on the Presidium printed on it, Emily was at a loss. Who was this from and what exactly did they want to achieve here?
"Everything alright?" the secretary asked.
"Yes. Thanks," she muttered before looking at the card again and walking out of the clinic and towards the rapid transit station that would take her back to the embassy, only looking up when she felt someone bump into her shoulder, causing her to drop the card in surprise.
"Oh, I'm sorry about that, let me get that for yo-" a somewhat familiar voice began before turning into the very definition of annoying excitement. "Oh god, it's you again. Commander Shepard!" the blonde man nearly screeched, causing her to look at him. "Don't you remember me?" she did, she had just forgotten his name. When he picked up on that, he continued, excited none the less "Stupid me. Of course you don't, you're way too busy being a hero. It's me! Conrad Verner! We met after Eden Prime."
Conrad Verner. While she had forgotten the name, she hadn't forgotten the encounter.
What were the odds of bumping into this guy on a station as big as the Citadel twice in the span of a couple of weeks?
Did she have a stalker?
"Right," she said, realising that he was still holding onto the card and now looking at the star and the address with a very uncharacteristic second of focus. "Can I have that back?" she asked a moment later, breaking whatever concentration had kept him silent.
"What? Oh. Yes. Of course, of course," the man said, still bursting with excitement. "I can't believe I ran into you again. That fortune teller was right, this is totally going to be my year!"
"You went to see a fortune teller?" as the words slipped out of her mouth, she barely had time to realise the grave error of starting a conversation with the man.
Bad move.
"Yes!" he exclaimed. "It's a krogan down in Kithoi Ward. You pay him and then he takes you to a bar, gets really drunk and reads you the future from his ryncol glass."
Could a person really be this stupid?
Apparently they could.
"Let me guess. You also pay for his drinks?" she wasn't sure why she felt pity for him but she definitely did.
"Yes."
"And then he just tells you something?"
"Yes! Awesome, right?" he asked enthusiastically before his eyes glinted. "I can take you if you want to!"
"Conrad," she sighed.
"I've got time whenever you do. My boss doesn't need me back at work. Perks of getting fired for not showing up anymore."
Christ.
"Conrad!"
"Yes!"
"You got scammed," she said while stuffing the card into her pocket and taking a step to her left to pass him. "Don't go there again. Also, try and find a new job, will you?"
"Whatever you say, Commander!" he replied ever cheerful before stepping away, causing her to sigh.
He was an actual crazy person, wasn't he? It was just her luck that she had been chosen as the subject of his hero-worshipping.
Maybe she should seize the opportunity and put him into the clinic?
It'd definitely save her some nerves.
Turning around to see if she could still see the man, the N7 was surprised to come up with nothing. Despite there only being a few people around, he had dropped off the face from the earth as quickly as he had appeared. Deciding that she couldn't save everyone form themselves, she rubbed her shoulder where they had bumped into each other and went on her way to the embassy. Crazy person or not, the guy just wasn't sturdier than he looked, he also seemed to be pretty quick.
Weird.
Ten Minutes Later, HSA Embassy, Infirmary
As she walked into the room to check on their quarian guest and pass some time, Emily immediately noticed was the absence of the C-SEC detective that had taken up camp in the embassy.
"Hey Tali," she greeted the quarian, who by now had been removed from the clean room and put into a regular hospital bed. "Where's-"
"He said something about a debrief before he left," the young quarian replied quickly while looking at the empty chair. "Can I ask you something?"
"Sure."
"How long are you going to keep me here?"
"I think you'll need to ask a doctor about that."
"I wasn't talking about the infirmary," Tali clarified. "When can I leave? I still have a pilgrimage to complete."
Emily bit her lip in response. "I don't know," she finally said. She wanted to say that the quarian was free to go whenever she wanted to but she knew that that just wasn't the case. Tali wasn't just a person of interest to the Council and the HSA, she was also in danger. Arterius had never bothered to remove her form the hit-list she had been put on some weeks ago. The moment she left the embassy, the hitmen that had gotten her into this situation would come back to clean up their contract and collect the bounty.
"That's exactly what everyone keeps telling me," the quarian replied after a long sigh. "I never should've followed that bosh'tet to begin with. If I had just given the recording to those guys back when he found me," she mumbled behind her mask. "Keelah, how could I be stupid enough to think that some qai'tasi rasiya," as more and more foreign words and curses left the quarians mouth while she described her encounter with Morneau, the N7 briefly considered checking her translator before realising that neither the HSA, nor the Council that had given them the technology to begin with, had actually bothered to provide an up-to-date translation matrix of whatever dialects and languages had evolved in quarian society after three hundred years of spaceborn isolation. "Why are you looking at me like that?" Tali suddenly said, snapping Emily from her thoughts.
"I didn't get most of that," she admitted.
"Most of what?"
"Everything after tasi?" she said, trying and failing to mimic what Tali had said.
"Don't worry about it. It wasn't anything important," the quarian replied after a moment of silence in which she probably realised the issue herself. Picking up on the clue that her mood had taken a dive after realising that she wouldn't get to leave anytime soon, Emily did the best thing she could think of.
"Tell you what. I'll try to figure out when you can leave, okay?" she promised, inevitably setting her up to talk to Udina again.
"You will?"
Well now that she had promised it, she kind of had to, no?
"I will," she replied, desperately hoping that this chat would involve less 'do you have any idea what kind of political disaster you caused by speaking up against the Council?' and more 'Oh, the quarian. Of course, how could I forget about her? She is free to go whenever she likes.'
She was aware that it was a delusion but it was still a nice hope to have.
"Thank you," Tali said a few moments later.
"Don't mention it," she replied, ready to walk away before remembering something else. "He said he's sorry, by the way."
"Excuse me?"
"The other human? The one who took the recording from you? He told me he was sorry."
While she couldn't see if Tali looked angry or not behind her mask, the rest of her body certainly tensed up.
"That bosh'tet can save his apologies for himself," she replied. Not wanting to argue with what was a sound reason to be angry, Emily only offered a sympathetic smile. She had done her part, passed on his message. What Tali did with it, wasn't up to her.
"I'll be back later," she nodded before leaving the infirmary.
Five Minutes Later, HSA Embassy, Office of Ambassador Udina
As the knock sounded on his door, Donnel Udina quickly stuffed the tablet housing the newest report of the latest addition to the embassy's staff into a drawer of his desk and locked up his terminal to hide the message Arcturus had sent him. No need for anyone to see what kind of trouble Goyle had readied for him when their current situation had been resolved or what exactly 'Lancelot' had been up to during his stay on the Citadel.
"Come in."
Watching as the door opened and frowning as a familiar N7 walked inside, the ambassador did what he always did when meeting with people, make an assumption on their intentions. They hadn't parted on good terms the last time around and he wasn't her superior, so the only reason Shepard would come back now would be because he had something she needed.
Time to find out what.
"Commander," he greeted.
"Ambassador," she replied, folding her hands behind her back and waiting for him to say something else, giving him the brief opportunity to reflect on his grandiose lapse of judgment.
She wasn't just as formal as Anderson, she basically was him from ten years ago. A young N7 with a spectacular service record, prestigious commendations and an incredibly fast-paced career suddenly being thrusted into a position where no one and nothing could tell her what to do. In retrospective, he really should've known that the situation would unfold exactly the way it had. An overeager officer with a lot of power looking for more glory and yet another medal was always a sure way to disaster. Especially if someone named 'Udina' was involved. Glancing at the framed picture of his son, he let out a sigh.
"How can I help you, Commander?"
"I wanted to ask you something about Tali. Or rather ask you something from Tali," the N7 began, surprisingly awkwardly. He'd chalk it up to the way he had ended their last conversation. "We've been talking and she asked me when she can leave, I said I'd find out."
"Leave? The last I heard, at least a dozen hitmen are still out to get her," the ambassador said cautiously while inspecting one of the plants next to him. "Nevermind her importance as a witness."
"I know and so does she."
"So both of you know that she'll be dead within an hour of stepping out of the embassy?" he added while unlocking his screen again. Thanks to the previously mentioned addition to the embassy and his trips into the Citadel's shadiest wards, he had just the kind of argument to settle this discussion this instant.
"I don't believe that the HSA can't get her past a few thugs and back to the Migrant Fleet."
"The same Migrant Fleet that threatens to fire on any Council vessel that even dares to enter the same system as them?" he muttered before activating the projector and letting the image of the quarian's rising bounty and the number of interested contractors speak for itself.
"From what I understand, she's the daughter of an admiral. Doesn't that amount to some good will with the fleet?" the N7 said, apparently unfazed by the fact that nearly two hundred people on this station, or rather a hundred and ninety two if one factored in the ones Lancelot already taken care of under his orders, wanted nothing more than to kill a scared girl far from home.
"Maybe," he replied before offering his own position. "But why take the risk of transporting her and getting shot down when we can just call the fleet and tell them to come and pick her up?"
"Wait. Did you do that already?"
"No," he shook his head, surely sinking the commander's hopes. "But I will when Arcturus gives me the permission to."
"Arcturus is the reason we're keeping her here?"
"Of course they are," Donnel retorted while folding his hands. "I know people like you and Anderson don't see it like this, but I work by the instructions of parliament. I am accountable for my actions," with the exception of his rather unpopular temporary suspension of David Anderson from the ranks of the Spectres, it was true.
"I'll take that as a 'you don't know when she can go either'?"
"I'm afraid I don't," he replied, waiting for the N7 to react. When she didn't, he decided to metaphorically extend a hand to her. Whether he liked it or not, he'd have to work with Shepard. Even if she had made a fool out of herself in front of the Council and even if that would fall back onto him. Glancing at the picture again, Udina gave his answer. "I can imagine how her father feels, not knowing where she is and not hearing a word from her in weeks. No family should have to go through that," after pausing for a moment he looked back at the red-haired officer. "Tell Miss Zorah that we're working on her timely return."
"I will," the marine nodded before turning on her heel and making her way to the door, a process that was interrupted by the sound of her own omni-tool and the ambassador's terminal beeping with a new message.
Although he had been here before often enough with Anderson to know what that meant for them, he still looked at the screen to confirm that the message was from whom he suspected it to be, the Council. When he recognized the familiar emblem, he let out another sigh before addressing Shepard.
"Ready your team and get to the Normandy, I'll handle the Council."
A nod was the only answer he got before the soldier bolted out the door.
Forty Minutes Later, 26. January 2415 AD, HSASV Makalu
In his head, it all could've gone so smoothly. He would've let things play out until they hit the relay, gotten Taylor and his men into position and just waited for the separatists to walk into their arms. It had been a simple plan that only would've required him to mess with the guard schedule a little. A happy coincidence, a vigilant marine lieutenant who ended up catching the IFS operatives by chance, nothing more, nothing less. No mention of his own involvement whatsoever.
It would've been so perfect.
So why the hell did Ahern have to move up the deployment by two days and give him only a couple of hours to come up with a new solution, which involved doing the one thing he had wanted to avoid at any cost.
Tell the captain what was going on with his ship.
"So, let me get this straight," Captain Rico, the XO of the late Admiral Kahoku, said while still leaning back in his chair, still looking at the ceiling of his quarters and still tossing a small rubber ball against it. "There's a bunch of Iffys on this ship who want to blow up the Citadel. You think you narrowed it down to Colonel Salib and the military police but you're still not entirely sure how many there are. So instead of just arresting her right now before she can do any damage and squeezing the names of her buddies out of her, your plan is to wash all of them out and stop them from going through with their attack by putting us into a spot where they can actually take the shot."
"I couldn't have said it better myself," Redford nodded as he watched the man throw and catch the ball again and again, doing his best not to let it show how much the sound was irritating him.
"That's not just one hell of a theory, Specialist, it's one hell of a gamble," Rico offered while continuing his game of catch. Although he was glad that the captain seemed far more inclined to listen than Admiral Ahern, he caught the glance the officer threw at him in between his ball throws.
He got it. When it came to humans, HSAIS had a dozen reliable means of interrogation that could be used to find out some names. But in their particular situation, those means were simply too far away. By the time they got the colonel to Cronos Station, her allies could do considerable damage. He realised it was a contradiction, but their safest bet was simply to let their enemy take action.
"I know."
"I figured you did," as he caught the ball a final time, Rico sat up straight and put on as serious of a face as Redford had ever seen. "Alright. Let's ignore that you're getting all of this from a gut feeling and say you're right and Salib's the head of this operation," although he got where it came from, he didn't like the skepticism in the man's voice, "She'll have the clear advantage of knowing you're coming. Sure, on paper only she knows you're Section 13 but if she is the mole, she definitely told her people about you," those really were far too many 'ifs' for his liking. Picking up on the fact that Rico was waiting for him to say something, Redford obliged.
"Yes. Let's do that," he said, prompting the captain to go on.
"How'd you go about actually stopping her and her men in that case? You said it yourself, you don't know who the Iffys are and while I don't doubt your abilities, I'm sure you're just as impressive as I've heard, I don't see you stopping a mutiny on your own."
"I already considered that, Captain," the specialist replied. "While I can't say I'd trust all of the marines in the Fifth," with the well-known IFS sympathy that had been running through the rank and file of the fleet ever since the Blitz, there was a decent chance that picking the wrong marines could create even more allies for Salib, "I did manage to rule out the platoon that was on duty the night Kahoku died. If you give me the all-clear for this move, Taylor and his guys will be my back-up."
"Okay. So instead of being on your own, you'll have the company of the grunts that Salib already fooled once. I mean I can only speak for myself but those aren't the guys I'd want covering my back."
"Maybe. But those are the only guys I've got. Besides, Salib beat them at her game. Next time they'll be playing by the marines' rules."
"You sure put a lot of faith into a bunch of strangers."
"When Salib makes her move, they'll do their job," he replied with a shrug.
"You see, if you put it like that, you make it sound like I already gave you permission to turn my ship into a warzone."
"If this goes how I picture it, there won't be much of a war, Sir. Just a bunch of IFS goons walking straight into a trap."
"No offense, but I don't think anything on the Makalu has gone the way you pictured it up to now," the officer replied. "Can you guarantee that this will be different? That you can stop Salib from spacing half a million people when I take us through the relay in half an hour?"
"No, I can't."
"Alright. That's not the answer I expected."
"I wasn't going to lie, "Redford shrugged.
"Then how exactly did you plan to convince me?"
"By telling you that our best chance of stopping the Iffys is by letting them make the move we can predict. And by telling you that your entire crew is in danger if they get the feeling that someone's onto them."
"Good attempt, Specialist," Rico admitted. "But unlike the people on the Citadel, everyone on the Makalu signed up for being in danger. You're asking me to weigh some ten thousand lives against half a million. How am I supposed to give you the all-clear with those kinds of odds?"
Suddenly a realisation struck Redford.
He might not have been able to tell the admiral not to go ahead with the deployment because of the dangers it posed while the IFS was still active but he might just be able to get the captain to just not give the order.
While it felt shitty to manipulate good intentions this way, he was very ready to seize the opportunity.
"What are you going to do, disobey the deployment order and just stay where you are?" he said, throwing the idea into the room.
"Isn't that what you were hoping for when you asked Ahern to delay us a couple of days ago?"
He wasn't sure how long the surprise on his face lasted but it definitely was long enough for the captain to smirk.
"You knew?" he asked.
"Of course I did. Whoever told you that the captain of a dreadnought doesn't have the security clearance to tap into an encrypted message sent from his own CIC was full of shit. The HSA made damn sure that nothing gets off one of their flying WMDs without me knowing about it."
In retrospective that really should've been obvious.
"Why put up an act then?" he asked a moment later.
"To get a better impression of the guy who's about to turn my ship into a warzone," Rico shrugged. "Now, when you've stopped being surprised, I'll tell the admiral we ran into some trouble. Can't hit the relay if we've got a drive core malfunction now, can we?"
"No we can't," the blonde specialist replied a moment later.
"Glad to see we're on the same page," he nodded before going on and starting to type on his omni-tool. "The way I see it, I should buy you a couple more hours at least. Now go get Taylor and have a talk with Salib. See if you had the right idea. And if you didn't, try and use the time to come up with a defense good enough for the two of us, alright?"
"Gladly."
Ten Minutes Later
"You ready for this?" he asked the marine next to him while checking his own sidearm. They were just one door away from their confrontation with Salib and if it was anything like the other times he had cornered an IFS operative, it'd get ugly.
"Damn right I am," Taylor replied with a nod.
"Alright. Let's do this," Redford said before opening the door and stepping inside, finding the surprised colonel sitting behind her desk, rows and rows of paper and several data terminals stacked around her and obstructing his view of her hands.
"What's going on Bradfor-"
"Get up, show me your hands," he instructed. Much to his surprise, Salib complied immediately.
"What are you doing, Specialist?" she replied immediately realising that he was here as his Section 13 person.
"Stopping you," he replied. "You and your Iffy friends are done for."
"My Iffy friends?" she replied confused before glancing at Taylor.
"Your investigation team. We know that they're IFS. Just like you are," the lieutenant explained.
"What? Me? They wha- What are you talking about?" the woman stuttered in perfectly faked confusion before looking Redford in the eye.
"Don't bother putting up an act. It's far too late for that." he said calmly, his eyes scanning her hands and her body. No wires, no weapons. So far so good. "Cuff her, Taylor."
"Cuff me? We're on the same side!" the colonel replied, still sticking to her lie.
She wasn't fooling him though.
"Same side?" he almost would've chuckled if this situation wasn't so serious.
"Yes. The same side," she repeated with a panicked voice.
"If you are on our side," he began, "how come you missed the fact that every mp you've put onto Kahoku's murder was rigging reports and falsifying evidence left and right this entire time? You're far too good of an investigator to slip up like that," as he leveled his gun at the head of the woman, his finger inched closer to the trigger in an unspoken threat.
"I'm not-"
"Who are your guys and where are they right now?" he cut her off, registering the fact that Taylor had frozen a good meter in front of her with the handcuffs still in his hand, afraid of being hit himself.
It was a bluff, he wasn't going to shoot her.
But as part of that bluff he made damn sure that it looked like he would.
"Jesus! If they were doing that, I didn't notice because I'm not an mp, alright?" the woman suddenly shrieked before quickly explaining, stumbling over her own words several times in the process. "And I'm not some IFS mastermind either. I'm a communications specialist, a freaking lab squid! The navy sent me here because they wanted to know how the IFS was getting messages off our ships!" They what? "They gave me a military police cover so people wouldn't ask twice when I snooped around the Makalu to set up my equipment. Kahoku knew but when he died, Arcturus couldn't just pull me out without everyone starting to ask where the highest ranking mp was going. So they told me to stay put and-"
Well damn.
"- and sent me to do your job instead," Redford realised before lowering his gun. Was this how far the Arcturus' liking of secrecy had gotten them? That the individual services weren't even telling each other what they were doing anymore? He sighed. Why even bother to answer that question? Of course it had and in addition to having enjoyed a front row seat to the war that had led to this state, he was also part of the problem.
Bloody hell.
Suddenly everything was starting to make a disturbing amount of sense. Why a Section 13 agent was tasked with heading a murder investigation in place of a high ranking mp, why said military police officer had done a disturbingly little amount of actual work related to the murder and how said military police officer, who's service record had been just a little bit too perfect in retrospective, had missed the manipulation of her own subordinates. It all came down to her not actually being who he thought she was and no one else bothering to tell him about it.
"Exactly."
As Taylor stepped away from her and put away the cuffs, Salib lowered her hands and sat back down.
"I think it's time we talk to the captain and tell him what's really been going on with the two of us," she suggested.
"I already talked to Rico. He knows I'm Section 13. The only part we'll have to clear up is that you're a comm technician, not a mole."
"Wait, he knew? How?"
"He listened in on my chat with Ahern. So he's known about my real identity for a couple of days."
"But that's impossible I made sure the transmission was encrypted. There's no way anyone listened in on that."
"Turns out you can't send a message off a dreadnought without it passing by him, encrypted or not," the specialist explained. "The CIC, the communication array, it all runs through the captain's office at the end. Kind of makes sense when you think about it. Of course the captain of a dreadnought would have the monopoly on communication."
"It all runs through him," the woman muttered in repetition before rushing over to her terminal and typing away on it. "Shit. This explains everything. This is how they've been communicating this entire time without me picking up unsanctioned traffic or finding any hidden relays. They weren't using their own system or sneaking data packs off the ship. They didn't have to. They just went through the existing system and had the guy at the top greenlit it for them."
"What's she talking abo-" Taylor tried to inject, only to be interrupted by something that confirmed Salib's in the worst possible way.
It was moments like these that convinced Redford that the universe had both a sense of comedic timing and an irrational hatred for him. Just as an artificial voice notified every sailor, in every room on every deck of the imminent relay transit the Makalu would embark on, he realised what Salib was getting at.
He had walked right into it. Rico had seen his chance and played him like a fiddle.
"Shit," he growled before looking at Taylor. "Get your guys," those three words were all it took for the marine to sprint out of the room. "Communication specialist you say?" he asked next. Salib only nodded in return.
"You got a gun?"
She nodded again, this time somewhat unsure. In turn he moved towards the door of the office and checked the corridors. Rico would send someone after him now. It was just a matter of time. But for now, the coast was clear.
"Well, congratulations then. You just graduated to field agent."
"Hold up, I did what?"
"You heard me. You'll help me stop Rico."
"And how exactly am I going to do that?"
"By making sure I don't get shot in the back on my way to the elevator and by finding something that proves he's the bad guy before I drag him off the bridge," he replied, catching the worry on her face. He couldn't blame her. Sure, she was a soldier but if one's job consisted of monitoring messages and data transmissions, they probably didn't expect to ever actually use their gun on anyone. If he had a choice, he wouldn't drag her into it.
But he didn't have one.
So he had to.
"Don't worry. I kind of planned for this," he reassured her.
"Kind of?"
"Well I figured you'd be the bad guy but that's just a minor detail, really."
"A minor detail? That's a major chang-"
"Word of advice," he cut her off. "Don't think about it. Just do your job and make sure I can do mine, okay?" when she didn't reply, he decided to give it another go. "Okay?"
"Okay, okay."
"Good," stuffing the gun into the waistband of his uniform to disguise it, he peaked around the corner again, put as casual of a face as he could and nodded towards Salib. "Stay close and keep cool. If you see a guy looking like he wants to kill you, kill him first." He took the silence that followed as her answer and started to move. While the advantage of an ongoing relay transit was that the hallways were mostly empty, most sailors were working on their duty stations after all, there were still quite a few crew members going about their business. And thanks to his own mistake, there was a very real chance that some of them were out to kill him.
Hence he decided to pick up the pace, a decision that paid off when they reached the elevator without incident.
"Remember. Casual," he reminded the colonel now that they stood face to face and he could see just how tense she looked. The woman really was out of her depth.
"I'm trying but one of the mps just walked into my office," Salib replied, causing him to look past her. Nothing yet. While it could mean nothing, it could also mean that they had missed their first assassin by a few meters.
"Do you have to be anywhere specific to get me what I need?"
"Well not exactly, I set up more than enough data collectors to piece things together. I just have to search the clou-"
"Alright," he cut of the technobabble. He wouldn't understand it either way. "Here's the new plan. I'm going to take this elevator and head to the bridge. You'll get me what I need before I get there and if see anyone you recognize while you're at it, you ditch. Don't risk it. If I miss my shot, it'll be up to you to stop Rico."
"It'll only be a couple of minutes to the bridge," Salib pointed out as he called down the elevator.
"Not enough time?" he asked in turn.
"Technically not. I know what I'm looking for. But it'll be cutting things close. Really close."
"Cutting things close is my specialty, Colonel."
Besides, if he did still miss a few seconds by the time he was up there, he could just spent some time chatting with the iffy captain, couldn't he? Come to think of it, doing that might just rat out any possible IFS operatives among the bridge crew as well. So with the exception of walking into a completely unknown, extremely hostile situation, there really were just advantages to this.
"So. This is me. You ready?" he said when the elevator reached them.
"As ready as I'll ever be," the communication officer replied.
"All I needed to hear."
"Deck Sixteen," the upbeat voice of the elevator's VI announced behind him, prompting him to step inside.
"Just walk slow, alright? I'm serious. This is going to be really close!" she called just before the doors closed and his ascend began.
Walk slow, hmm?
Alright. He could do that.
"Deck Twelve." When the doors opened, Redford pressed himself against the side of the elevator. He wasn't going to let anyone get behind him, not in his current situation.
"Afternoon," the taller one of the two officers greeted quietly before smashing a button on the control panel and making way for his silent comrade, who shuffled in after him. When he came to a stop, Redford noticed something about the smaller, blonde guy that he didn't like one bit. Especially not after spotting the N7 badge that decorated his dress uniform.
He was out of breath. It wasn't much but it was barely enough to be noticeable. So either he happened to be a serious chain smoker who lost his breath after a couple of steps, which was very unlikely given his evident profession, or he had ran to catch this particular elevator.
Hence, Redford settled for the latter.
Which raised the next question.
Why would he do that?
There could be a dozen reasons, really. Dreadnoughts were busy places, maybe the guy was in rush. Maybe he hadn't fancied waiting another minute or two for the next elevator.
Or maybe, just maybe, the guy had run to catch this particular elevator because Redford was in it and he was here to stop him on Rico's behalf.
Yeah.
He'd have go with that one.
"Deck Eight."
After the tallest officer stepped out of the elevator, two marines with military police badges walked in, the brief look they gave the N7 officer in Redford's focus either indicating that they knew him from seeing him around or that they had taken this elevator because they too were here to stop him.
There were four more decks to go until he hit the bridge.
They weren't just going to let him walk out of this elevator.
When the doors closed, it'd be on.
Just another moment.
There.
Watching as one of the guys tried to subtly move his hands to the emergency brake, Redford let out a sigh, pulled the gun from his waistband and aimed it at the marine standing opposite to him.
"Trust me, lads, I'm not the kind of guy you want to be stuck in an elevator with."
"You sure you wanna do this, Specialist?" the N7 asked after his two comrades had frozen in place.
"What's the alternative?" he replied, trying to stall things further. He didn't exactly look forward to fighting the two people he couldn't shoot before the N7 charged him. "Walk away and let you do your thing?"
"Exactly."
Two more decks.
"You really think I'll do that?"
"I was hoping you wouldn't," after rolling his neck and producing an audible crack, the blonde man only threw a blood-thirsty smile at him before throwing his first punch, a distraction another one of the marines used to try and wrestle the gun away from him.
It didn't work.
Just as his ears started to ring from the gunshot that connected with the leg of the mp standing opposite to him, he felt his jaw snap out of its socket despite doing his best to get his hands up in time. Thanks to the lack of space to dodge, the N7 had hit him. Hard. And judging by the painful barrage of punches hitting his ribcage right he was set on finishing this with his fists. As he wrapped his arms around the blonde man in a tight clinch, Redford spun him with as much force as he muster, using him as a shield from the other marine. Aiming his gun over shoulder of the N7, he fired off another shot, the echo of which he barely even heard this time. After dropping his target with a sloppily aimed hit to the chest, he began squeezing his arms together in an attempt to subdue his last opponent. But instead of succeeding, he suddenly went flying to floor. As the wind got knocked out of him and the full weight of a naval special forces officer began pressing down on his chest, air suddenly became a rarity within his lungs and his gun went flying across the elevator.
Not good.
Since this guy was not only twenty years younger than him but also a much better brawler, the specialist knew that he wasn't going to last long in a traditional fight. He had to end this. Now. As his grip started to slip, he could already picture the N7 sitting up and beating him to death with his bare fists.
So before that could happen, Redford put everything on one move, let go of the blonde N7 and went with the first move he could think of.
Smash his forehead against the younger man's nose with as much force as he could produce.
Surprisingly enough, it actually worked.
In what couldn't have been more than two or three seconds, the marine instinctually jerked upwards in pain. Although it wasn't much, it gave the specialist just enough wiggle room to reach for the gun with his left hand and fire of another shot straight through the head of his attacker.
As the now dead N7 dropped backwards, Redford only really could form one thought.
He might've just made turned himself deaf.
Well, still better deaf than dead, right?
Realising that he couldn't hear his own chuckle and also had to stop said chuckling because of his dislocated jaw protesting with pain, the specialist brought up a shaky, blood sprinkled hand and fixed the problem with one swift, incredibly painful hand jerk.
'Son of a-'
Realising that he wasn't hearing any of what he was saying, he stopped his cursing and tried to get up. After attempting that, the first thing he had to do was grab the railing so he didn't fall face first to the ground. Reaching for his one of his ears with his hands and feeling a hot sensation when he touched it, he pulled back and saw that a little amount of his own blood had collected on them. Go figure massive ear drum damage would mess up his sense of balance as well.
This would make things a lot more complicated.
Glancing at the indicator, he cracked a smile and pushed the thought of whether or not he really had turned himself deaf into the back of his mind.
Deck Four.
Made it.
When the doors opened and he started to move forward by leaning against the wall for support, Redford only stopped to type a message into his omni-tool.
In the state he was in right now, he had to know that this would go down without a fight.
'Do you got it?'
As he took more careful steps forward and started to close in on the bridge, already being eyed by the guards in front of it, he got his reply.
'Yes. Just hit play.'
That was all it took for him to take the next gamble and flash his badge at the marines in front of him, figuring that if they were IFS, he'd already be dead anyways. He couldn't fight anyone else, not the way he was right now. Cracking a brief smile at the irony of a ruptured eardrum of all things might just achieving what the Fringe Wars, Kamarov and his dirty bomb and every far more dangerous mission he had ever been a part of hadn't come close to do doing, namely actually kill him for good, the blonde specialist did the one thing he had always been good at, stubbornly take another step forward.
Trying and failing to read the lips of the marine corporal coming his way, Redford only pointed to the bridge before moving past him, leaving the mess in the elevator without an explanation. While it'd be an easy solution, he didn't have time to type up a message or a lengthy elaboration or something like that. He needed to play whatever Salib had found and stop the bridge crew from going through the relay. After all, there was no guarantee Taylor had actually managed to stop the other iffys from taking over the maingun control. Just like he had walked into Rico's trap, he had also told the mole about Taylor's part in the plan, probably turning an easy ambush into a bloody skirmish.
Stumbling through the door, leaning against its frame for support and seeing the bridge crew turn to him in complete silence, or rather in how much silence the constant ringing in his ears allowed, Redford stared at Rico, who was sitting in his captain's chair. Then, without further ado, he did what Salib, a person he could've sworn was an IFS agent not twenty minutes earlier, had told him.
Hit play.
While he couldn't hear what was being said, the fact that the new XO and a bunch of other officers immediately stopped what they were doing told Redford that the military police colonel turned communications specialist had come through. Watching as Rico got up and went for a concealed gun, only to be tackled by a nearby ensign, the specialist didn't hear but definitely felt the single bullet that hit his unprotected shoulder. Reaching up with a hand to stop the bleeding, he kept watching as Rico struggled against this arrest.
Only when a squad of guards moved in to detain Rico and he spotted Taylor heading for the bridge, he had a grim expression on his face and his armor looked a bit worse for wear than before, did the specialist finally allowed himself to stop fighting the loss of balance and blood and slide down against the circular blast door. After Redford ripped off a piece of his shirt to stop the bleeding with, felt a couple of broken bones in his ribcage and groaned in pain, he decided that this was as good of a spot as any to wait for the medic to pump him full with painkillers and put him back together
As the first person decided to attend him, he muttered something through the constant ringing.
"I'm getting to old for shit like this."
It would only be a couple days and one emergency ear surgery dedicated to fixing the damage he had caused later that he'd hear that the message Salib had used to incriminate Rico had been sent by the Taylor's father. And from there on out, it'd be two more years before he'd learn what kind of path that would send the young biotic lieutenant down.
All because of a bloody secret.
Two Hours Later, 26. January 2415 AD, HSASV Normandy
"Joker?" Emily asked while looking at the screens in front of the pilot and leaning against the man's chair.
"Yes, Commander?"
"Why did we stop moving?"
It had been three hours since she had gotten the word that STG had found Arterius cloning facility on some forest planet in the backend of the Attican Traverse. In her mind, she and her team already would've been halfway across the galaxy by now. But for some reason, the transit procedure and any general forward movement of the Normandy had just stopped twenty minutes ago, prompting her to go and investigate.
"The relay's blocked."
"What?"
"The relay's blocked. Too much traffic," the pilot repeated.
"You're telling me the mass relay has a traffic jam?"
"Kind of. It's more like a traffic blockade, really."
"A blockade? By whom?"
"Us, apparently," as he wiped his hands across the holograms to produce a depiction of the dozens of human IFF signals frozen in place inside the Serpent Nebula, Joker turned in his chair. "I don't know why but half of the Fifth Fleet is just sitting there. Doing nothing."
"And you can't fly past them because?" she began, throwing the question into the room.
"Because a fleet admiral told me to hold," Joker replied dryly. "Ahern ring a bell?"
"Can't say it does."
"He's the guy in charge of the navy's entire logistic operation. Top dog back on Arcturus."
"And he told you to hold?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
They didn't have time for this.
"He didn't say," the pilot shrugged before adopting a mocking tone. "In fact, he just kind of went 'stop what you're doing, I'm calling from my office on Arcturus and I'm going to ground your sorry ass forever if you don't,' and left. It was kind of rude actually."
"Weird."
"Again. Not the word I'd use."
"Joker."
"Yes?"
"You're flying the fastest stealth ship in the galaxy, right?"
"Last time I checked. Why?"
"Think you can get us past the Fifth? We're kind of on a schedule here."
"And disobey the orders of a fleet admiral?" he replied, shocked. But before Emily could tell him that she'd take full responsibility, he went on "Now how could I ever in good conscious," as his hands started to dance across the holographic displays, an artificial voice announced that the Normandy was now entering stealth flight, "go against the orders of a high ranking flag officer for the egotistical reason of helping my Spectre CO stop a freaky turian from bringing about the end of the world?"
"Galaxy," she corrected with a smile before glancing out of the cockpit window into the purple clouds of the nebula. Unless they scraped by an observation deck, no one would see them.
"World, galaxy, whatever. Just remember it when you recommend me for a medal and a promotion."
"I'll keep it in mind."
One Hour Later, Armstrong Nebula, BC-313 New Dawn
"I trusted you. How could you do this, Ronald?"
"How could I do this?" the man retorted as one of the ISFDF soldiers cuffed him on the floor of the New Dawn's bridge. This wasn't the only arrest currently going on, Taylor hadn't worked alone, but it was the one arrest she needed to be a part of. The one arrest every other officer around her needed to see. " How could you? Ten years ago you never would've even thought of giving up this kind of chance but now you betray everything we ever stood for. You gave up on fighting the HSA. I didn't want to believe it but you did," as the guards lifted him to his feet, he looked directly into her eyes. "And to what end? What did you get from selling out the principles of our nation? The ideals our brothers and sisters died for?"
"A chance to live and fight another day."
"A coward's response," he replied.
"A strategic decision," she countered. "Under the uniform code of the IFSDF, the punishment for treason during wartime is life in jail."
"We don't have any jails around here," the former Paladin pilot spat back. "Just kill me and get it over with."
"Our constitution doesn't allow the death penalty, Captain. We're not animals," the admiral replied. "Besides, I won't give you what you want. You don't deserve that."
"So you'll let me rot in the brig like some animal?"
"No," Drescher shook her head before replying in an icy tone she made sure everyone else on the bridge heard. "I won't waste any more precious resources on traitors like you."
"Then what the hell are you going to do?"
"You'll see when you wake up," she replied before nodding.
"Wake up?" the captain wondered right before the sedative was applied by one of the soldiers surrounding him.
"He's out cold, Ma'am," one of the guards confirmed a few moments later.
"Good," she nodded. "Helmsman, set course to GWC 01-2479," it was one of the several inhabitable worlds the IFS had discovered without the knowledge of their enemies during the Fringe Wars. While it'd kill most people in a year, it'd be as good of a prison as any for a man like Ronald Taylor. He was too tough to die from something like exposure.
"Aye, Ma'am."
What a waste of a good soldier.
Three Hours Later, 26. January 2415 AD, HSASV Ain Jalut
"You wanted to see me, Sir?" Captain Tore Haugen asked after entering the holo-room and looking at the hologram of the man that had sent him on this mission, Admiral Hackett.
"Yes. I'd say take a seat but whoever built these holo-rooms didn't think about including those."
"Is this about Balak?" he asked before folding his arms.
"Yes and no. The guy you captured finally started talking."
"But?"
"But something's come up."
"Something more important than stopping a batarian terrorist?"
"Something far more important and far more time sensitive," the naval officer replied with a serious expression.
"Which explains why the Ain Jalut has been running on stealth and hitting relays for the last two hours," the ASOC officer figured.
"Exactly."
"What do you need Phantom to do?"
"In two days, you'll link up with the Normandy and assist the Third Fleet, four turian battlegroups, an asari flotilla and an STG detachment in launching a planetary assault."
"On which planet?"
Although he knew it was a product of his own personal vendetta with the bastards and wouldn't be the man's reply, the only explanation he could come up with was some kind of preemptive strike on a batarian core world.
"Virmire."
Like he said, just a product of his vendetta.
"Never heard of it, Sir," he replied a moment later.
"I didn't expect you to. It's a backwater in the Attican Traverse."
"Permission to speak freely?"
"Go ahead, Captain."
"Then why the hell are we hitting it with that much firepower? What's so important about it."
"It's payback for Eden Prime," Hackett offered.
That's all he needed to hear.
"Understood."
"I'll transfer the details of the operation to your personal terminal. Hackett out."
01:02 Local Time, 27. January 2415 AD, HSASV Normandy, Mess Hall
"Couldn't sleep either?" a voice asked, stopping the N7 from going over the details she already had for the upcoming operation for a third time.
"I slept plenty on the Citadel," she replied half-jokingly. "What's your excuse, Alenko?"
"Something along those lines," he replied before sitting down at the table. "You're worried about this mission as well, aren't you?"
How the hell did he know that?
"It's just that we have a lot of unknowns in here," she said, scrolling through the file a final time before putting the tablet down. "I mean STG found the cloning site and they definitely think Arterius is on world as well but besides that, they don't really know anything. We don't have a real estimation on how many geth or krogan he still has and we don't know if that reaper ship is still around. We're basically charging into the unknown. I hate doing that."
"I get that," he replied. "But isn't that what we've been doing this entire time? Ever since Eden Prime, all we've been doing is charging into the unknown. Didn't stop you from getting us out in one piece."
"Because it was just us. This time its different. If this goes like the turians want it to go we'll have thousands of allies on the ground with us. It won't be a firefight, it'll be a small war."
"Nothing you haven't done before," Alenko replied. He sure had a lot of confidence in her. "Besides, if we're lucky, it'll also be the end of this mess. If Arterius is there and we take him out for good, that's it. We all get to go home," as she looked at the lieutenant, a random thought jumped from her head to her mouth.
"What's home for you anyways?" they had never talked about that. Sure, she knew where he was from but that was about it.
"I got a place on Earth when I graduated Grissom," he replied. "Vancouver to be precise. What about you? Where do you live?"
"I've been jumping from barrack to barrack since I joined up," she replied, suddenly feeling pretty weird about the fact that she technically had never officially moved out of her parents' home on Benning after enlisting in the armed forces. With neither the marines nor the navy ever keeping her in one place for longer than a couple of months, it just hadn't seemed logical to get a place for herself.
"Sounds like the military's pretty much your life."
"I guess it is." After all, it was all she had ever done and unless something drastic happened, it was also all she'd ever want to do. "But enough about me. What are you going to do when you get back?"
"What I always do," Alenko shrugged in reply.
"Which is?" she pushed, being curious now.
"Well first I'll make myself some decent food. Not the artificial stuff the HSA heats up for us. Then I crack open a beer, enjoy that I won't have to be sober by the next formation and watch some real hockey. The ice kind. Not that weird anti-grav stuff they play in the colonies."
"And then?"
"Then I just enjoy life until duty calls me back to this," he offered before stretching his arms out and looking at the ship around him. Although the gesture was more on the humorous side, Emily couldn't help but pick up on the hidden meaning.
"Now stop me if I'm wrong but that kind of sounds like you don't enjoy doing this."
"I don't," he replied sincerely. "I get the point. I know why I do what I do. But I don't enjoy it. Never did, never will."
"But you're still here."
"But I'm still here," he confirmed.
"Why?"
"Because I can do stuff other people can't. I mean I could've been out two years ago. I already did the twelve I had to do when I accepted the offer to go to Grissom. But if I leave, someone else has to pick up the torch. And frankly? I don't want anyone else to have to do what I do. So I signed up for another five years. And when those are over, I'll sign up for another five. And so on, and so on."
"That's really noble," Emily mumbled with a small smile. "But it doesn't exactly sound like it'll make you happy in the long run. It's your life, Alenko and you already did more than you had to. Finish your five and get out. Spent your time doing what you really want to do, not what you think you need to do."
"Strange advice coming from the person who just said the military's her life."
"Doesn't make it less true, does it?"
"I guess it doesn't."
"So?" she said a moment later.
"So I guess we'll see about it in three years?" he replied cautiously before picking up on her expression. "What?"
"Here I was thinking I'd give you life altering advice and you just go 'we'll see about it'."
"Well, it's not exactly the decision I should be making at one in the morning, is it?" after he had looked around the mess hall and stretched upwards, he got up from the table. "You know what? I'll actually catch some more sleep while I still have a decent bed. I'll see you in the morning. Bright and early, right?"
"Yeah. Bright and early."
Codex: Grissom Academy
Built on Terra Nova, one of the three human colonies founded prior to the foundation of the Human Systems Alliance, Grissom Academy is the only facility equipped to train human biotics. Built and structured in a manner similar to the other military academies found on Terra Nova, Grissom Academy is as much as school as it is a medical facility, handling both the training of human biotics and the supervision of those who suffered high levels of eezo exposure.
Staffed by a mixture of human and alien personal, the facility followed the traditional naming procedure of Terra Nova's other military academies and was named after a famous war hero, Jon Grissom.
Although facing the same kinds of criticism similar schools on Terra Nova have endured for centuries, namely that they are the factories for politically-indoctrinated children who are fast-tracked to leadership positions within the HSA's high echelons of government, it should be noted that unlike with the other academies, a noticeable portion of first-generation Grissom graduates decided against a prolonged service within the HSA, finishing up their terms of services and then moving on to civilian careers instead. While still in the minority, these people are often presented as a counter-argument.
Although the exact number of biotics graduates is kept a secret under the orders of the Arcturus administration, it is known that unlike in the years of its founding, Grissom Academy now also houses several hundred non-biotic individuals who train alongside the biotics students to ensure a successful integration of those who were permanently altered by eezo-exposure.
While not confirmed by any official source, rumors spawned by former staff, former students and former building contractors suggest that Grissom Academy was heavily fortified to protect its school grounds from any potential attack.
Additionally to the rumors about its hidden weaponry and defensive installations, it is a fact that the former Spectre Tela Vasir, who was the first asari to be granted political asylum by the HSA, acts as the chief biotic instructor of Grissom Academy.
A/N:
Remember how I thought I'd have a bit more time until summer rolled around?
I was wrong.
I'm swamped with "school" work.
So yeah.
I really don't see myself keeping up the pace of the last updates until well... I think I'll stop making predictions for this year.
Either way. Enough about that. Let's talk chapter.
For this six week wait you get... *drum roll* ANOTHER SET UP CHAPTER!
... alright, not exactly, I did kind of finish Redford's segment /Jacob Taylor's origin story (what does that mean? we'll get to it later.)
but other than that, I just kind of... had people talk?
Yeah. That's a good description of how this chapter turned out.
Also, prepare for the renegade/paragon meeting. That'll happen. It might not go down how you'd imagine a paragon/renegade meeting but it'll happen.
Other than that?
A word to Kaidan.
I decided to give him a different story than "my head hurts sometimes."
can I say I planned that? No it was kind of a spontanous decision but once I started writing, I realised that I didn't actually have any character like him. Basically everyone in Semper Vigilo is idealistic... in one way or another (which is very probably owned to my own personalty. I might be a cryptic fuck, but I like to consider myself something of an idealist as well). So yeah. I decided that Kaidan's going to be the guy who's literally just doing his job. He didn't ask for this (kind of) but he's good at it so he does it.
That's him now.
Also, let's have a word about Redford.
As I just mentioned, the cryptic nature of a lot of what happens in SV isn't lost on me. I have long since embraced the fact that the HSA's individual servies are run by a bunch of James Bond fans turned into Kingsman agents and love having people wait for you in the dark corner of your room to have an obsucre chat with. (bonus points if their eyes glow, yeah who remembers that? happened way in the beginnning when I didn't take this story as seriously as I do now. There was kind of a rewrite and direction shift since then :D )
So yeah. I decided that eventually characters are going to pick up on that and start having issues with it.
Since I consider him to be the most grounded person in this entire story, that role fell onto Redford. Unlike with Kaidan however, that's been planned right from the point where I outlined Semper Vigilo's actual plot.
So yeah. (Why do i keep saying this?) the entire point of this arc, which I admitably could've finished up earlier if I hadn't underestimated how much Shepard and Morneau plot I'd actually be writing, was to set Redford on the course that'll lead to his final role.
Also, also, I totally hit you with the switcharoo on who was the bad-guy in that arc but like I just said. The Makalu story-line was never about the Makalu. It was a catalyst (can I use that word in a mass effect story without setting off a chain reaction?
Anyways, before I ramble even more:
For the record we're at 550 reviews, 852 favorites and 939 follows.
